History

Since the Baptism of Poland in 966, the Catholic Church has always played an important religious, social and political role in the life of the country.

Especially in times of foreign domination they had an important role in the cohesion of the Polish nation.
Even under Communist rule was they a counter-power that attracted many people.
The Roman Catholic clergy retained its autonomy and was further strengthened by the choice of Cardinal Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II in his position.

After the reunification in 1989, the Apostolic Constitution Totus Tuus Poloniae Populus decreed on 25 March 1992 by Pope John Paul II a new and restructuring of the Catholic Church in Poland.

According to official statistics in 2011 were approximately 33,583,500 people, or about 87.2 % of the Polish population of the Roman Catholic Church (percentage of Catholic baptized in the total population), over 75% of them stated that they regularly the Holy Mass
to visit.
The rest of the nearly five million Poles belong to any religion or over 40 other denominations.

The church today has considerable political influence, according to the state 's second largest owner of real estate and has about 300 media outlets and 50 radio and TV stations.

In recent years, the high influence of the Catholic Church was particularly noticeable in the cities back.
A church-critical party, the Palikot Movement, made ​​the immediate jump in the Polish Parliament.
In particular, the fact that many Catholic priests are close to the right-wing parties, increasingly weakens the influence of the Catholic Church leadership on the Polish society as a whole.